DeForest Kelley On...     Kelley Filmography Home    

DeForest Kelley On...

The Star Trek Franchise - dealing with Paramount, etc.

Residuals
Consultation on scripts
Contract Negotiations

Residuals and Royalties

How do we feel about not being able to participate in the royalties of the videocassettes of the motion pictures? We want to cry, don’t you know. A lot of people are under the impression that we get residuals from the series. We don’t, you know. We did for three years. And at that time the Screen Actors Guild had a contract that after the first year we got paid for seven reruns, the second year, eight reruns, the third, ten, and that’s all, and that was all that we were paid for. Shortly after Star Trek was dropped, the Screen Actor’s Guild came out with a clause that stated the actor must have residuals in perpetuity even if it only amounted to 25 dollars each time around. So none of us are participating in the 79 jewels for Paramount. It’s all theirs. A lot of people think we’ve been getting paid for all these years, but we haven’t. That’s the very sad part of it. But things could always be worse.
[Convention: Dearborn, 7/19/87]

Consultation on scripts

Could the group of us get together and more or less control what we wanted to do? Is that what you said? Yes, I suppose. If they all got together. If we could get them all together and say this is what we want to do, they would have to do it, what are they going to do without us? We have some input. Some of it is taken, or at least on occasion, that I do. I have been consulted from time to time.
[Convention: Dearborn, 7/19/87]

Contract Negotiations

Oh, Paramount thinks we're getting too expensive. Listen, they must be talking about a couple of other guys. They're not talking about DeForest Kelley. I don't think so. I think with the enormous amount of money Paramount has made with us, whether they say that they have or not, the years that they have been able to syndicate the show, the merchandising with it, the enormous amount of money the motion pictures have brought in, people forget. Maybe not you but people who have just seen the show. They seem to think every time the show runs, we get paid for it We don't. We were paid off at the time we made Star Trek. We got seven reruns and that was it, first two years. The third year it went to ten. ­We've been paid off for years, so we haven't really made that kind of money on Star Trek. Now look at all the years that Star Trek was showing. A lot of people thought we were still making the show, you know, so there's a great policy about the amount of money. I think Paramount has made a great fortune with it. But not the actors. That is why, whenever anyone might say that Bill Shatner went for the gold, I'm for it. Not that I would get it, but I'm for them getting everything they can possibly get out of it. (long applause)
You only come around once in this business and I'll tell you something else, the minute they feel they don't need you, you're out. Those of you who plan to be an actor, it's true. There's not much family feeling as we know it among ourselves in the entertainment business. It's there when you're working and on the set, but it's strictly dollars and cents and do we need you? Can we use you? If they can't, they don't want you.
[Convention: Baltimore, July 1985, transcribed in Guyer, 1991.]